Emuna Daily

Self-control is knowing you can but deciding you won’t. 

~ Chicken Soup to Warm the Neshama

It’s the strength to prioritize your values over your impulses, shaping who you truly want to become.

The point of a challenging situation is for us to work on our Bitachon.

The goal is not to solve the problem – I am relying on HaShem to solve the problem!

The goal is to strengthen our reliance and closeness to HaShem.

~ Michael Safdie

Each mitzvah has its mazal. People spend generously for honors like opening the aron kodesh or being a sandak, which aren’t actual mitzvos but are gestures of love for mitzvos. Ashreihem Yisrael—they are fortunate! 

However, each time one obeys their father or mother, they are performing a mitzvah from the Torah itself. Only fools neglect it.

~ The Pela Yoetz

There is a powerful segulah to remove all hardships: a person should internalize that Hashem is the true G-d, and there is no other force in the world… When one focuses solely on Hashem, without giving value to any other power, Hashem will help him, and no harm can come to him.

~ R’ Chaim Voloziner zt’l in Nefesh HaChaim (3:12)

The Torah tells us that Yaakov Avinu prepared tasty food “ויבא לאביו…” (“and brought it to his father,” Bereishis 27:31). 

The two words ויבא – אביו have the same letters, only in the opposite order.

This hints that if you will honor your parents, your children will honor you back. Your good deeds will be returned to you.

~ R’ Elimelech Biderman

Hachnasat Orchim (welcoming guests) is even greater than arriving early at the Beit Midrash to study Torah and receive the Shechinah.

~ R’ Nachman of Breslov zt”l

Regarding a difficulty in your life, ask yourself if you would be able to bear it more calmly if you knew when it was going to be over.

Now tell yourself, “Hashem has already scheduled the end of this challenge. I may not know the date, but it exists.”

~ R’ David Sutton

To win the battle against the yetzer hara, one needs optimism. If he believes he will fail, that will inevitably be the outcome.

Forget past failures. Focus on the present.

Forge ahead, battle the yetzer hara with energy and optimism, and you will win.

~ R’ Elimelech Biderman

Tefillah doesn’t change Hashem’s mind, rather,

“When one prays, he rises to a higher place, and becomes a new person. And although Hashem decreed on the previous person a certain decree, with tefillah to Hashem…he became a new essence.

It isn’t that Hashem changed his desire, rather on this person who is presently here, the decree was never placed.”

~ The Bnei Yissaschar zt”l

Chazal tell us that answering “amen” is mesugal for arichus yamim (longevity), but there are two “amens” that are particularly conducive for long life.

They are the “amen” answered after המחזיר שכינתו לציון and the “amen” after הפורס סוכת שלום (said in Maariv of Shabbos and Yom Tov).

~ R’ Liber HaGadol of Berditchev zt”l

I will just add that the Satan must know this, as it seems people often skip answering amen to these two brachos, rushing into “Modim” or “V’shamru.” Be mindful and careful not to miss them.